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Alien experts believe humpback whales may hold the key to communicating with beings from outer space.

The US-based Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute believe that patterns in whale songs could be adapted to other species to form an emotional bond.

As such, they’ve launched a new project to try and use maths to understand what the humpbacks are saying to each other.

Humpback whales live alone or in small, transient groups for brief periods of time (Image: Getty)

‘Our project, funded by the Templeton World Charity Foundation, is to investigate the vocal and social behavior of humpback whales using quantifying measures such as the mathematics of information theory,’ explained SETI Institute research scientist Laurance Doyle.

‘One goal includes developing a kind-of intelligence filter for use in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.’

Whale song could help us unlock the secrets of interstellar communication (Image: Getty)

The project has several aims, including using the whales as a basis to develop a ‘comprehensive framework to understand friendship, love, devotion, and trust in non-human groups.’

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They also want to study collective behaviour and group dynamics over both short and long time periods. They say this could be a measure of group intelligence.

The plan is to quantify just how much complexity there is in the communication once the whales start singing to each other.

‘Another goal includes an effort to measure empathy in humpback whales which have been known to save other marine mammals from, for example, orca pods,’ Doyle said.

‘Finally we wish to understand the individual interaction of socializing and feeding humpback whales and for this study we will deploy a five-element hydrophone array in Southeast Alaska starting in the summer of 2019.’